AUBURN -- His offenses have set records most everywhere he's been, whether while winning state high school titles in Arkansas or leading Tulsa to the top of the NCAA charts or helping Auburn win a national championship with easily the best offensive season in school history.

Gus Malzahn, mad scientist with a football clipboard?

That's not the Gus Malzahn that Rhett Lashlee knows.

"That's probably a misconception of what we do offensively, that it's an extremely elaborate, crazy rocket-science plan. But really, it's a well thought-out scheme," said Lashlee. "It's really more predicated on discipline and execution."

That observation from Lashlee, Malzahn's long-ago high school quarterback who was his graduate assistant coach last year, may seem like a downer, until you look at the eye-popping stats Auburn's offensive coordinator put forth last season. Auburn set nine offensive school records, including most points, most yards, rushing yards, rushing touchdowns and passing touchdowns, and the quarterback, Cam Newton, won the Heisman Trophy.

People took notice. He was named the national assistant coach of the year. Vanderbilt offered him its head coaching job. Auburn made sure Malzahn wouldn't leave by making him the highest-paid public school assistant football coach in the nation with a $1.3 million annual salary.

Neither the money nor the national title has seemed to change Malzahn.

"The challenge now is to do it again," he says.

Misconceptions

Lashlee, who has left Malzahn to be the offensive coordinator at Samford this year, knows his mentor's offense better than most. Not only did Lashlee play quarterback for Malzahn in high school, he set national passing records. He was Malzahn's graduate assistant at the University of Arkansas in 2006, and again at Auburn the past two seasons.

Malzahn's persona doesn't seem to match his offense. He comes across as a straightforward, studious guy.

"I think that might be the misconception about him," Lashlee said.

"When he's in game-plan week or game day or he's in a football setting, he's always even keel and focused. But outside of football, he loves to have a good time. He's a funny guy once you get to know him on a personal level. He likes to have a good time with the best of them. And he loves Mexican food."

Lashlee didn't always think so when he first saw him as a seventh grader.

"We started learning what he wanted in junior high, and he was a big, scary guy who was always serious as the media is used to seeing," he said. "By the time I started playing high school, what he was able to do is push us and teach us to push ourselves much farther than we thought we could. He got us to achieve things we probably thought we never thought we could as players. I think that's been one of his biggest strengths: He's going to push you hard, he's going to work you hard and get the most out of you. While it's happening, you probably don't appreciate it as much, because it's tough, but when you look back on it, you really appreciate it."

Lashlee knows why people assume Malzahn is always cooking up crazy things. Of course, Malzahn's 2003 book and video, "Hurry Up No Huddle -- An Offensive Philosophy," may have something to do with it.

"To the average fan, or even a defense, it can look very elaborate or sophisticated, but to the kids who are running it, it makes a lot of sense," Lashlee said. "The base offense is always the same."

Malzahn likes to talk about his offense and "pace," a system that puts the pressure on defense to be ready, often before it can make situational substitutions. But it's not about a succession of mindless hurry-up plays.

"One of the things I learned from Coach is it's not about how many plays you can run, but how many plays you can run well. If you can run big plays really well, that's better than having 50 good ideas," Lashlee said.

Then what is the offense? Malzahn doesn't like to hear it's a spread offense because that makes it sounds like it's about a bunch of dumpy passes and motion. Malzahn talks about running first. That's the playbook reason not to call it a spread. Another reason not to call it that is the Tigers' previous offensive coordinator, Tony Franklin, turned it into a dirty word during a season of abject failure in Tommy Tuberville's final year.

Malzahn distanced himself from any comparisons in his first press conference and never looked back.

His offense at Auburn is more like his offense from his previous stop, Tulsa -- where his first team led the nation in total offense and his second team finished No. 2 -- and from his 14 years of coaching Arkansas high school football. It was less like his offense from his first job as a college coach. That was as the offensive coordinator at Arkansas in 2006 when the coaches on that staff made little effort to accept him. He and quarterback Mitch Mustain left Springdale High in Arkansas to go there, but they were both gone by the next season.

Malzahn, who chooses not to discuss that season, is held in respect around Arkansas from his high school days and the three state championships he won. Robin Beach recalls playing against him when they were in high school.

"We smoked them," Beach remembers.

But he appreciated Malzahn's work then, when he became a high school coach and during his run up the college coaching ladder. Beach likes him so much that his son, Kiehl Frazier, is now a freshman quarterback at Auburn.

"The thing about Coach Malzahn is he has an air about him that commands respect," Beach said over the summer. "When you start talking to that man about football, you understand you are talking to one of the greatest offensive minds in this country today.

"This guy eats, sleeps and breathes this stuff. He is very, very intelligent."

Cam Newton was left with that impression after a solitary recruiting trip to Auburn. The visit included a long talk, one on one, with Malzahn. He signed with Auburn weeks later.

Auburn didn't know what it had in Newton, at least not until after the third game of the 2010 season. But, even when it did, Newton said he didn't receive any special favors from Malzahn, who was molding his offense around the eventual Heisman Trophy winner.

"In his position, you can never be satisfied," Newton said as last season wound down. "It would be more weird to see Gus Malzahn say, 'Good job, guys' rather than him saying, 'Get after their behinds.'

"That's Coach Malzahn for you -- he's always wanting to be better. That's what I want in an offensive coordinator -- somebody who's always going to be relentless in looking for success."

Newton appreciated what Malzahn had done for him in the middle of it all last season.

"I just remember 365 days ago, where was I? I was in (junior college in) Brenham, Texas.

Nobody cared about what I was doing. That's where I get my humbleness from. From Gus Malzahn and also Kristi Malzahn. They keep me very, very down to earth."

It's Team Malzahn.

"Oh, Miss Kristi. What doesn't she do?" Newton said then. "She's texting me on a consistent basis. They're always worrying. If they weren't always worrying, then that's when I'd be worrying. I know they have my best interests at heart."

Picking starters

Malzahn has had to pick a lot of starting quarterbacks in his career. Newton was his choice in 2010, though it didn't come without some careful thought, and didn't come until spring practice as over by almost two weeks.

He had to make another choice in the middle of the 2011 fall camp when he selected Barrett Trotter over Clint Moseley. It's no secret Moseley was disappointed.

It seemed to even get to Malzahn.

"Those quarterbacks are like my sons. You get close to them," Malzahn said. "We do everything together. When one's hurting, I'm hurting."

Malzahn's job immediately was to get Trotter ready for the season-opener and to keep Moseley focused on the task at hand.

"He's one play away. He'll prepare like he's the starter," Malzahn said.

He's told plenty of backups the story before.

He began his career in his Arkansas high school football, first at Hughes High in 1991. He would spend 14 seasons coaching Arkansas high school boys to five state championship games and three state titles.

Then he and quarterback Mitch Mustain left Springdale for the University of Arkansas. They were both gone by the next season.

Malzahn went to Tulsa where his first team led the nation in total offense and his second team finished No. 2.

New Auburn coach Gene Chizik hired him before Tulsa played its bowl game. What Malzahn found in short order was a quarterback who was coming off shoulder surgery and another quarterback who was would be moved to wide receiver.

But Malzahn cobbled together an offense that saw Chris Todd set an Auburn record for most touchdown passes in a season and turned Kodi Burns from a would-be quarterback to an Auburn hero simply in the way he switched positions with class.

Auburn went 8-5 in his first season, beating Northwestern in the Outback Bowl in a wild 38-35 win.

Then Malzahn went about looking for his fifth different starting quarterback in five years. He found one, changed his offense enough to embrace uncommon skills, and helped Auburn win the national title.